Health justice : an argument from the capabilities approach / Sridhar Venkatapuram.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Venkatapuram, Sridhar.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Right to health.

Social justice.

Physical Description:

xi, 270 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Polity, 2011.

Summary:

Social factors have a powerful influence on human health and longevity. Yet the social dimensions of health are often obscured in public discussions, due to overwhelming focus in health policy on medical care, individual-level risk-factor research, and changing individual behaviours. Likewise, in philosophical approaches to health and social justice, debates have focused on rationing problems in healthcare and on personal responsibility. However, a range of events over the past two decades such as the global experience of HIV/AIDS, the international women's health movement and the flourishing of social epidemiological research have drawn attention to the robust relationship between health and broad social arrangements.

In Health Justice, Sridhar Venkatapuram takes up the problem of identifying claims individuals have in regard to their health in modern societies and the globalized world. Recognizing the social bases of health and longevity, Venkatapuram extends the 'capabilities approach' of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum into the domain of health and health sciences. In so doing, he formulates an inter-disciplinary argument that draws on the natural and social sciences as well as debates around social and global justice to argue for every human being's moral entitlement to a capability to be healthy.

Health Justice aims to provide a concrete ethical grounding for the human right to health, while advancing the field of health policy and placing health at the centre of social justice theory. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I

1 Health as Capability 41

2 Causation and Distribution of Health 73

Part II

3 The Capabilities Approach 113

4 The Capability to be Healthy 143

Part III

5 Alternative Approaches 173

6 Groups and Capabilities 201

7 The Capability to be Healthy and Global Justice 215.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-264) and index.

ISBN:

074565035X

9780745650357

9780745650340

0745650341

OCLC:

757926981